Starting To Start

A Starter's Guide

Substack has a helpful prompt when you start to compose a new article. It simply reads “Start writing….” Thank you, Substack, that really is the secret to it all. It doesn’t tell you to stop and think first, but to just start. It’s the jumping into the deep end school of learning.

Want to learn how to play the piano? Start tapping the keys. Want to paint? Start painting. Want to learn Calculus? Start, um, calculating? Ok, that one’s a bit of a stretch for me. My father was the math whiz but he failed to pass along those genes. Just know that you start doing something, presumably with numbers and funny looking symbols.

When you learn something, starting is step one. Are we all clear on that? You’ve got to start. Many of us try to start by reading about what we are wanting to learn. Then we can watch interviews with people who do whatever we’re learning on YouTube. Then we can watch people doing whatever it is we’re wanting to do. Then we can go to sleep comfortably with the knowledge that the “pre-start” activities are accomplished and that we can start the actual starting tomorrow, with tomorrow being some vaguely defined day in the future that is not the current day in which we now preside. There may be even more pre-start items to consume before starting, who can say, but starting is definitely on the horizon.

If and when you actually start something new, it’s possible that every part of you will be telling you to stop. There may be cake in the fridge that is getting lonely. Ignore that. Keep starting, keep going, no pain no gain, mistakes will be made, eat the damn cake, keep going, make a million more mistakes. Have you reached the million mistakes point? Very good. That’s a good start.

Once you’ve started you may wonder when it’s ok to stop. I don’t have any advice on that. Frankly, it took me so long to get started that the idea of stopping is terrifying. Additional mental health cakes may need to be purchased to cope with that. Just know that you can stop if you have something else to start, like a dive into this month’s comics.

I changed Tabby’s wording just for this post. In the original strip she says, “You found my cat food smoothie.” That had some readers assuming she was actually drinking it. I can see how they thought that. I didn’t think that, obviously, but I changed it to avoid confusion. Feedback can be a writer’s best friend.

People are still commenting on this one on various Meta-owned social media platforms. There are some pretty insightful comments, tinged with some bitterness, but a few are very pro-business and using the comments section to promote their stringent views. Or they were. I deleted some of the nutters.

This was a personal favorite, because it’s me as a college freshman with a credit card that has an obscenely high limit. Why they chose to give an unemployed eighteen year old access to spend whatever he wanted at the mall bookstore is beyond me (yes, I was that kind of crazy partier in my day). I’m sure it was for solid business principals. I not only learned a valuable lesson, I now have some really cool books that are no longer in print. Let’s just say that I no longer do business with that credit card company and move on.

I liked this one because of the sign. Now that I work at home, it really is too fattening. I have to watch it. If I eat a candy bar I have to leap onto the treadmill. Unfortunately I can afford a candy bar but a treadmill is out of my price range.

This one didn’t work. Isn’t that great of me? Posting the ones that didn’t work? No? Well, it’s frustrating. As a clerk, if you have someone who is nice but won’t stop talking, it’s very challenging to scoot them away as a crowd builds up behind them. The trick is to waive the next person forward as you’re listening to the talker. That usually provides a nice conclusion to the conversation, but not always. You have to work at three times your usual speed to make up for such a customer.

The night before your day off is always the real day off, at least for me. I did know a guy who would be at the tennis court at seven in the morning on his days off and I called him Mr. Perfect. Oddly enough, he didn’t seem to mind that insult.

Readers took this opportunity to throw insults at Berle, as expected, but all of this was to lead up to Todd covered in paint. Using two strips to satisfy an urge to see a paint-covered Todd may have been a bit of overkill.

At my local big box store they have a paint department that is pretty nice, with a big table, paint mixer, and checkout area. It’s also completely spattered in paint. I think Jackson Pollock is the manager and Todd is the sole clerk.

The last CEO hasn’t been seen in quite awhile. She was based on an actual person who left the company to be some sort of motivational speaker. I have to wonder what kind of motivation she’s trying to instill because sending positive vibes wasn’t her forte.

There is such theater when a higher up visits that it was only natural to turn it into actual theater.